“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

-Albert Einstein

I’ve always been somewhat vocal about my views on just about anything important to me.  The way I see it, if you believe something is important and you have something to say about it; you may as well get it out there; else you’re just committing intellectual suicide.

I don’t worry much anymore about what others think of me for being who I am; because being who I am is much more important than what they think of me.  In fact, if I had spent much of my efforts in recent years worrying what other people think, trying to be popular, it’s likely I wouldn’t have accomplished much of anything at all aside from being a selfish, intellectually lazy, ego-centric, attention-whore; which is generally what the really popular people are, though they’ll never admit it.

As you may imagine, this means I’m often not the most favored person; but the people who really do appreciate me for who I am, form a lasting mutual bond that is virtually impenetrable.  Because there still are some people out there who appreciate intellectual honesty and despise the kind of mundane conformity that has gripped so many in it’s clutches.

One thing I notice about most people I come across these days, is they don’t really have much, in the way of their own unique viewpoints.  If you happen to have a unique viewpoint, they really don’t want to hear it.  They’ll either pretend they are listening and have absolutely nothing to say about it, or they will flat out ignore you once they realize that you have a viewpoint that they don’t agree with.  It seems to me as if they’re so afraid to have a real discussion about something, where there might be differences of opinion and the possibility that their own views may become vulnerable; that they’d rather steer clear of it altogether.

That’s the way most of the places/groups one can go to, in order to socialize have become.  You’re expected to just sit down, play the game and not say anything too controversial or “out of the box.”  If you do, then many people will start to isolate you and ignore you. If that’s the way so-called communication is supposed to place, then who the hell needs it!

If the new definition of communication is to have watered down conversations in which everyone focuses on the same old same old talking points and nothing new is ventured into; then it isn’t really communication at all.  We may as well just go to our coffee houses, sip on caffeine and make beeping noises at one another.

It’s just frustrating to have so many people in this world, yet so few who really want to try new ways of seeing things and doing things.  Is it any wonder why the years keep on passing, the problems keep mounting and not much of anything seems to get done about it.

What I’d love to see, is for more of us to be willing to really engage one another in discussions of things that really have the potential to bring about grass-roots changes in the world.  If someone has an opinion that is different than yours, discuss it in great detail so you can at least understand it; don’t just slam the door on them.

When you slam the door to communication, because you don’t want to have an uncomfortable discussion; then you’re just missing another opportunity to create meaningful change.  We can’t really afford to do that anymore, can we?  Let’s stop this bullshitting and time wasting, so we can get down to business; because I for one am not going to just sit around twiddling my thumbs while the world comes crashing down from all sides.

I’ve always found that the most valuable reflections are those in which I step outside of the day-to-day paradigm and examine life through a different lens. In this podcast I do just that. Looking at life, not from the perspective of material objectives, but instead from the perspective of individual growth.

As of September 25, gold has broken through two long-term formations and sits at the neckline of an inverse head & shoulders formation.

Given that gold closed the week at the neckline of such a long-term Head & Shoulders formation, after having shown such resilience over the past few weeks, it is time we prepare ourselves for a significant move, further into unknown territory. The chart above indicates that gold is acting like a coiled spring, ready for the slightest trigger, to send it into launch mode; bringing the price into the $1200-1300 USD range.

When I look at this chart, I am reminded of the 2002-2003 period, when gold was hovering around the $375 range in a large wedge formation. At the time everyone was thinking, “this must be it for gold, it’s already had such a run from $250, the bull run surely must be over by now.”

I remember seeing the wedges, similar to the current chart, though less volatile than the current price fluctuations. I remember seeing a good-sized wedge in the MACD which had broken to the upside. In fact, it was at this time that Jim Sinclair, the CEO of Tanzanian Royalty Exploration and the author of Jim Sinclair’s Mine Set had a contest for gold community members to draw the relevant trend lines on an Investors Business Daily gold chart that he provided. The prize for this contest was a one ounce gold coin.

Well, I took Jim up on his offer and drew formations similar to those on the attached chart. Including a MACD breakout precisely like the one on the current chart. I made the chart simple yet elegant and intuitive and fortunately for me; out of all of the hundreds of charts sent in to his fax, he chose mine as the winner. What a great feeling that was and what an appreciation I gained for the power that each of us has to understand what is going on in the economic world with elegant simplicity not endless complexity.

It was even more rewarding to see gold advance to $450 by late 2004 and then $700 by 2006. What you have to realize, when you are studying these charts, is the fact that the underlying forces which propel gold skyward have not changed. The governments and central banks of the world continue to employ their disastrously flawed Keynesian economic models which create welfare, warfare and ultimately massive inflation.

Politicians love having all of the “free” money, hot off the printing press, to buy votes, line the pockets of their associates and bail out their friends. That is why these leftist notions of a nanny state taking care of us from cradle to grave, often embraced by Republicans and Democrats alike, is not going to solve the problems it was intended to solve.

This is because everything has a cost, yes even the nanny state, corporate welfare and the like. As the price of the yellow metal rises the buying power of the savings of billions of individuals decreases; so they are in effect robbed in broad daylight by the Keynesian inflationary policies. Is it any wonder that the standard of living continues to decline all over the western world.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” –Einstein

One of these days, it may dawn upon people, en mass; that in general the government doesn’t solve problems, it only creates problems. So the only way to truly solve problems is by strictly limiting the role of government to that of a referee and letting the free market bring about the solutions we need.

Had the free market been allowed to act upon zombie banks years ago, when the problems first arose; these banks would have never become “too big to fail.” Had the free markets been allowed to act, unhindered, in the health care field, we would have more choices and less people unable to get the help they need.

Unfortunately, with the public school educated populace; the first place they turn whenever their is a problem is the government. So we have the Hegelian dialectic, “(problem) oh goodness, what a dreadful problem! — (reaction) what are they going to do about it? — (solution) the policies that were originally sought, but did not find the political support are now widely supported and then implemented without much opposition.”

It really saddens me to see my countrymen repeating this cycle over and over again, unaware and uncaring of the fact that it makes their lives much more difficult and constrained. I often wonder when it will become apparent to them that all of this nonsense isn’t working. Will it be when gold is at 3,000? 5,000? 10,000?

I can’t say for sure when decisive action will be taken; but if history is any indicator, inevitably there will come a point at which the pull of the massively centralized state on people’s lives distorts the culture of these people to such an extent that they decide they’ve had enough of it. This would be the point where they realize that it costs so much more to live in a massive welfare state than the benefits that are derived from it and the productive individuals either demand real change, or they pull up anchor and head for some place which will suit their needs.

And The Endless Crowds Of People
They Walk Upon This Stone
Where Will Their Memory Go
Where Did Their Minds Come From
And I Was Only A Child
When I First Looked In Your Eyes
And Saw Your Body Rise Over The Ocean

We Saw The Golden Boy Bleed Love
Onto The Sand Like Rain
While We Were Injecting Colours
Into Our Open Veins
And Deep Beneath The Water
The Dead Black Silence Crawled

Far Away Across The Ocean
The Golden Boy’s Beneath The Sea
The Golden Boy Swallowed By The Sea

And Love Is Sometimes Violent
And Violence Has No Constraint
And I Can See Inside You
Yes I Can Feel What You Think
And With This Knife Of Silver
I Will Release Your Soul
And Throw It Out Into The Ocean

Nine Million Miles In A Straight Line
In A Place Just Like This
In A Ship On The Water
Where No Dimensions Exist
My Hands Are Holding Your Picture
And The Image It Shifts
I Tear It Up And Scatter It Over The Ocean
The Golden Boy That Was Swallowed By The Sea

~swans

What is usually thought of as love
Is actually its opposite
The destruction of diversity
The antithesis of compassion

It is this idea that I must make you exactly like me
I must assimilate your mind, into my way of thinking
So that we may all be mere copies of one another
Without a single difference between us

Its all meaningless rote and ritual
Devoid of any fruitful existence
Stands between us, like a raging inferno
Burning anyone who gets too close to our boundaries

Are we really so different, at the core of our being?
Is not most of what we seek, one and the same?
But there is this mechanism in our conditioning
Often stifling our ability to extinguish the blaze

Alan Watts is one of the most fascinating minds of the 20th century. I still recall discovering his books, for the first time, several years ago; starting with This is It and later The B∞k: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Of all of the books I have read over the years, these two have some of the most profound influences on my relationship with reality.

His work is very powerful. Once you connect with it, it infuses with your very being and becomes a new facet of your awareness.

Alan has several foundational concepts, which he utilizes in his work. There is this idea that, what we think of as “our self” is not really who we are; but is instead an ego, or an entity that attaches to the self and tricks itself into thinking that it is the self. This ego gives itself the idea that everything in life fits into neat little boxes, simplified concepts, that causes us to act more rigidly; thus constraining our behavior and limiting our possibilities.

One of the biggest casualties of the ego, is not being able to fully exist in the moment. That is the theme of This is It; the notion that what is most important is being here, right now; in this body that is holding you. Yet the general tenancy is to escape the now for something that is to happen sometime in the future.

Opening up the mind to these new concepts of reality is one of the most edifying experiences. It really helps you to re-think this idea we call truth. It opens up a world of infinite inter-connectedness and inter-dependence.

A 1971 television recording with Alan Watts walking in the mountains and talking about the limitations of technology and the problem of trying to keep track of an infinite universe with a single tracked mind. Video posted by Alan’s son and courtesy of alanwatts.com.

see the playlist here

You might think its the bodily trauma of pregnancy and birth, or the constant stream of dirty diapers, or the sleep deprivation. There are many negative things that people often associate with the journey into parenthood; but I submit to you that there is something else altogether, seldom mentioned, which goes far beyond all of these things.

The worst thing about becoming a new parent, is how people who wish to control you, treat you. Yes, you heard it right. When you don’t have a kid on the way, you are of little matter to them; but once they hear that one is on the way; all of the sudden, they want to know everything about your life; they want to become good buddies, give you their “sage advice,” and guilt you for anything that you don’t include them in.
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by Tool

A groan of tedium escapes me,
Startling the fearful.
Is this a test? It has to be,
Otherwise I can’t go on.
Draining patience, drain vitality.
This paranoid, paralyzed vampire act’s a little old.

But I’m still right here
Giving blood, keeping faith
And I’m still right here.

Wait it out,
Gonna wait it out,
Be patient (wait it out).

If there were no rewards to reap,
No loving embrace to see me through
This tedious path I’ve chosen here,
I certainly would’ve walked away by now.
Gonna wait it out.

If there were no desire to heal
The damaged and broken met along
This tedious path I’ve chosen here
I certainly would’ve walked away by now.

And I still may … (sigh) … I still may.

Be patient.
I must keep reminding myself of this.

And if there were no rewards to reap,
No loving embrace to see me through
This tedious path I’ve chosen here,
I certainly would’ve walked away by now.
And I still may.

Gonna wait it out.

There are a great many well-meaning people, who intend to be helpful; they want to have a positive impact on someone else’s life so much that the effort becomes more about them helping than the ones they are trying to help.  When this occurs, those who are receiving the “help” must question the real intent and meaning of these actions.

In observing a “helper,” you tend to notice one of three things: they truly want to help, they are helping to satisfy a self-gratifying desire to help or they feel obligated to help in some way.

When someone wants to help for self-gratifying reasons, they generally care more about what they get out of the act, as opposed to the “help” actually being helpful and welcome by the other individual.  The end result of this sort of behavior, is that the “helper” is merely trying to control the situation, without regard to the wishes of the other individual.

If someone wants to experience something in their own way, then how helpful is it to force “help” upon them; when, in doing so, it causes more problems than it solves?  Then what we have here is not “help” at all, but a form of selfishness labeled as “help.”

Since the person on the giving end of this energy believes that they are only being helpful; they become unaware of the fact that they are actually doing more harm than good to those who they claim to be caring about.

If one really cares about another, then why not honor their wishes fully, without projecting guilt towards the other for not wanting the help?  Might one think that they “know better than the other,” how to live that other person’s life; and have “been there” and “done that”; but actually closed their mind to the possibility of other ways of approaching situations?

If someone has something important happening in their life, which they want to do their own way; then why should they want outsiders coming in pushing for their own agenda?

This essentially forces the other to deviate from their preferred course of action, otherwise be viewed as “the bad guy” and made to feel guilt for not taking the modified course of action.  How helpful is it to distract someone from accomplishing that which is important to them in the way they have chosen?

Often, the most helpful thing one can do, if one truly wants to help, is to allow the loved one to take the path they have chosen, without assistance, if that’s what they prefer.  It is often best to assume that one is not in need of assistance, unless they have asked for it directly.

The most loving thing one can do for another is to have unconditional acceptance for the other’s choices, without projecting ones own wishes and ideals upon them.

To put it simply, just “let it be” and one will help more than one could have planned or imagined possible.

Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities — the political, the religious, the educational authorities — who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing — forming in our minds — their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself.

— Dr. Leary

Our most important responsibility, as human beings, is to be a designer of our own realities; because, when we design truly unique realities, then we are adding something beautiful and unique to enrich the whole of existence, which in-turn encourages others to do the same in their own unique way.

In today’s world, however, this responsibility has largely been abdicated. Everywhere we turn, someone is trying to sell us a designer reality. Whether it be a media personality, a television show or a form of organized religion; these realities are not at all unique, and they aren’t even designed by the individuals who are trying to sell them.

The mind-set of today’s world best resembles that of a Parrot, which blindly repeats that which it hears most frequently. Of course the Parrot does not understand the true meaning of what it is saying or the implications, but it repeats it nonetheless. This being the case, the Parrot does not have any real control over its expression, so it therefor has little power to change anything.

If we can transform this Parrot mindset into that of the highly intelligent Human Beings, which we all possess the potential to be, then the world will change into a much more novel place very quickly; but first we are going to have to learn to communicate on a deeper level. We need to move beyond mere language and communicate in a more direct way, because so much is lost in translation otherwise.

That doesn’t mean that we have to stop using language, instead we need to change our relationship with language, so we truly understand what we are saying as well as what is being said. We need to learn to practice philosophy in small groups, so we have a rich understanding of our ideas. We also need to study etymology so we understand where the words we use come from, so that we, like the Parrot, are not using words we do not understand.

Its all about learning to operate your brain independently, so you are not co-opted by forces outside of your control, because the highest level of creativity and ingenuity comes from individuals who have chosen to blaze their own trail and reach their own conclusions.

How to Operate Your Brain

This is an experiment in mind formation, in-formation, forming, controlling, operating your mind and your brain, using digital techniques to overload, scramble, confuse, unfocus your mind.

The natural state of the brain is chaos. We’re dealing with a complexity of in-formation. The first thing to do is to overwhelm your focused mind, your linear mind, by overloading signals, digital patterns, clusters of photons and electrons which produce a pleasant state of confused chaos. This is the state of the brain when it is ready to be informed, that is, to be reprogrammed.

The human brain contains one hundred billion neurons, each neuron is as powerful as a large computer, and each neuron has around ten thousand connections with other neurons. Within our foreheads there is a chaos, inside our brains there is a galaxy of information, which is incomprehensible to our linear minds.

This contrasts and compares perfectly with the chaos without. We’re living in a universe, which has one hundred billion galaxies, each galaxy with star systems, planets, a complexity, again, which to our minds right now is chaotic, incomprehensible.

Chaos is beautiful. Now many times we are afraid because we want order. We can’t deal with the confusion and disorder. We want form. We want rules. Yes, throughout human history there have been people?religious leaders, political leaders?who will give you order. They will give you rules and commandments.

But chaos is basically good. Relax. Surf the waves of chaos and learn how to redesign your own realities. Sit back. Flow. Open your eyes. Turn off your minds. Unfocus, and let the waves of chaos roll over your brain. Float. Drift, Zoom. Design. Create new order, your order, your style from chaos.

Yes. Yes. Chaos. Yes, yes, chaos . . .
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If the people will simply transmute this stagnated, fear-based energy, into productive nurturing energy; they will profit greatly and the situation will reverse itself on all levels.

The people fear not having adequate food due to inflation, excessive taxation, poor use of capital and interest payments. With each passing day the people are becoming increasingly enslaved to the costs associated with the dependency on civilization and the money system.

It is therefore incumbent upon us to reduce our dependency on this civilization for survival. It is time to exercise our freedom to plant a garden, grow our own foods on this bountiful land that we inhabit.

We have to move away from this hijacked “money” system, and into a “human” system. The “money” system has no integrity anymore.

The architects of today’s system have created 1.1 QUADRILLION dollars worth of derivative instruments to float the massive debt and keep Frankenstein alive. At any moment, the money system could come unhinged and bring the prices of everything sky-high, as happened in Weimar Germany after the reparations of WWI.

It is far more profitable to live independently, when it is feasible, because the government cannot tax your tomato bush, fruit tree, etc. The system can, however, tax 40-50% of the cost of getting food through the money system. By the time a loaf of bread reaches you, it has been taxed, all told, hundreds of times directly and indirectly.

The trip to the ballot box is rigged, we have to uproot it at the source. Reduce, and seek to eliminate your dependency on civilization, become more independent with each passing day if you can.

The willingness to stop this dependency, when it becomes so much of a burden as is now the case, is an essential element of freedom.